Trauma is such a delicious thing in writing- it gives characters their backstories, their motivation, their special slant in a narrative wrok, from novels to webcomics.
However, it's usually considered in the context of how it has made a character ‘damaged goods’. Why they are grim, why they're ...

The Benefit of Trauma
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Sept. 22, 2018Taking a swim with the fishes - Offing your characters
Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, Aug. 17, 2018
There comes a time in any webcomic creator’s career where they have to be mean to their characters. And there is nothing meaner than letting the proverbial Sword of Damocles fall on a beloved (or equally unloved) character and watching their head roll to the chorus a shrill cries ...
Casting Characters in Comics - Larger casts, personality and temperament
Banes at 12:00AM, Aug. 9, 2018
Last week there was a post about smaller regular casts in a series - The Loner series, the Duo, and the Trio. Here's that post:
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/aug/01/casting-characters-in-comics-123/
With a larger cast, things start to get more complicated - but with more possibilities for different ...
Please Yourself? Or Please the Crowd?
Banes at 12:00AM, July 5, 2018
May the Forcefulness Be With You
I've been fascinated to watch the unfolding of the “battle” between Disney's Lucasfilm and the fandom playing out over the past few months.
If you haven't been looking at the fallout, there's too much for me to cover here; I ...
Emotional Color Wheel
Banes at 5:11AM, June 21, 2018No pic for this one. I'll add one later if the fates allow!
I was a big fan of all the Indiana Jones movies back in the day. When the fourth one, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, finally came out, it was exciting times! Harrison Ford only seemed ...
Daily Pages
Banes at 12:00AM, May 17, 2018I may have told this story in this spot before, but years ago I worked with this book called “The Artist's Way”, which included fun exercises meant to unlock the creativity most of us adults don't access regularly.
The main ongoing exercise done throughout the whole process of ...
The Sizzle and the Steak
Banes at 12:00AM, May 10, 2018
For of all sad words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”
Whether it's a webcomic, graphic novel, book, TV Show or movie, there is generally a “promise” made to the audience on some level. Maybe it starts with a thumbnail image and a ...
CHARACTER ARCS IN SERIES and SEQUELS
Banes at 12:00AM, April 19, 2018
Today we'll talk sequel and series character arcs
Last Week we talked about character arcs. They're an important element of fiction writing…although a lot of the time, there is no arc! But a strong, unpredictable character arc can be a great help in driving a story from ...
Gray, Black and White (part 1)
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 14, 2018
I had to hold myself back from making a 50 shades joke so badly I feel chafing from the restraints.
But this isn't about what you think- i.e. using grayscale or black and white rather than colour in a webcomic.
Rather, this is about a webcomic's characters ...
Character Arcs Revisited
Banes at 12:00AM, April 12, 2018
A character starts in one state of being, and ends in a very different state of being.
The Character Arc in a nutshell!
Every time the subject of character arcs comes up around the site or on the Quackcast, one of the first examples that comes to my mind is ...